


I'll Come to Thee By Moonlight

by MeggieB



Category: Anne of Green Gables (TV 1985) & Related Fandoms, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluffity fluff, possible book spoiler (very mild)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-18 23:58:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15497745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeggieB/pseuds/MeggieB
Summary: Gilbert can't sleep.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Humanlighthouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humanlighthouse/gifts).



> This was a huge challenge for me! I wanted to try to write the characters in an original situation (so far I've only been able to write things that I've seen happen). This was the result... I'm so nervous about this one so please do let me know how you like it. I'm not sure how realistic it is but... 
> 
> It takes place after season 2. The title is from the poem The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes, which Anne recites in the 1985 miniseries.

_Gilbert dreams of his father sometimes. At least, he thinks he does, he never really quite remembers. He just knows he wakes up sad, with an ache somewhere around his heart._

 

_For the most part he's glad Bash and Mary live with him; he'd been so lonely before. On these nights, however, he wishes he were alone again so he could pace the rooms of his house, trying not to cry. He knows maybe he SHOULD cry, but he also worries he won't stop if he begins._

 

_He knows he won't be able to sleep again on these nights. He tries every time anyway, lying in the dark with his eyes shut tight. It never works, though, and eventually he gives up and does what he always does: he gets dressed as quietly as possible and slips out the door. Sometimes a wander around his own farm is enough, sometimes he walks as far as the schoolhouse, even. Whatever it is, there is something about the inky darkness that soothes him and tires him out at it same time, making him feel like he can rest._

 

_Lately he's walked over past Green Gables farm. He knows why he does it (because you're gone on that girl, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Bash chuckles in his mind) but he tries not to think about it much. And he tries not to stay long, staring across the field at the window he thinks might be Anne's, like some love sick moke. Or worse, some...some lecher. He shudders at the thought. It's not like that, he just...he just feels better when he's close to Anne._

 

_Gilbert is a deep thinking boy and always has been, but he's not much given to introspection. He thinks of himself as one of the least interesting topics to be found, and as such he doesn't spend much time divining the causes of his own behavior. He feels better when he's close to Anne, thus when he's sad and restless he wants to be close to her, and that is that. So he walks to Green Gables when the sadness weighs particularly on him, and stands in the field for a bit. He imagines Anne is sleeping inside, dreaming dreams that don't wake her with pain and sorrow. Thinking that makes him feel better, unties the knot of grief in his chest the tiniest bit._

 

_It might have passed this way for a long time (though not forever; Gilbert will miss his father til the day he dies, but he is young and there is nothing so resilient as youth). He might have never told a soul about his night time rambles (though he suspects Mary knows, given the tender way she pats his head some mornings). He especially would never have told Anne. Except, of course, that one night Anne Shirley-Cuthbert woke up._

 

Anne can tell it's Gilbert Blythe, out there in the field. It makes her uncomfortable, how quickly she knows from just his shadow. But it's HIM. She can tell from the height, his straight back, the curls under his newsboy cap. Even at this distance, she knows it's him. But what could he be _doing_ out there?

 

She herself had woken from a lovely dream she, too, cannot remember, other than that it had something to do with stars. She was one, she thinks. It was the most beautiful shining dream...but then she woke and she's not sure why, other than she thinks someone might have called her name. She was a bit surprised to find herself alone and awake in the black of night (or maybe early morning, she isn't sure).

 

She crept out of bed to the window to look upon the stars, hoping that she can slip back into the dream when she falls asleep. It's a clear, beautiful October night and it's almost as bright as day between the stars and the high, shining moon. So she sees the figure quite easily and after one jolt of fear, she realizes it's Gilbert. But why has he come? At first she thinks it's some kind of emergency, like the night of the Gillis fire, or when Minnie Mae had that awful croup. She thinks with a gasp of Mary, who isn't telling anyone but whom Anne knows (from all her Hammond experience) is at least 3 months gone with Bash's baby. But no, not an emergency. He isn't moving fast enough for that. He isn't actually moving at all.

 

She thinks for a minute she should just go back to bed, but she knows somehow that she could never mention this to him at school on Monday, and her curiosity is far too great to let this slip away. ( _Later, it will occur to her that she never thought to wake Matthew or Marilla, as she would have if it had been anyone else.)_

 

She still feels like she's dreaming, in a way. So she doesn't think anything of just pulling her woolen stockings on under her night dress, and tip toeing downstairs before wrapping Matthew's thick plaid coat around herself. She laces up her boots quickly and creeps to the door. She should feel somewhat scandalous, going out to talk to a boy in this state of undress, but in dreams things like that don't matter so much.

 

Gilbert is still in a place of misery out in the field. He's grown up so much, he's had to, but in the wee hours of the morning he's just a boy yet. He misses his father and he needs him, to tell him what to do. To tell him what kind of man he's supposed to be trying to grow into. He wants to fall to his knees and holler up into the heavens, and he almost wishes he were very young so that he could. But he isn't, and he's concentrating so hard on not doing that that he doesn't see the front house door open until it's too late. Anne is walking out onto the porch and looking straight at him.

 

Gilbert's father brought him up not to curse and so he doesn't, but some of the more colorful phrases he learned on the ship run through his mind instantly. He should run, and he would have if he'd realized a minute sooner, but he's stuck. So he stands still as she stalks toward him, in nothing but (his cheeks are suddenly on fire) her night dress, and her hair loose for once, lying around the shoulders of the too-big coat she's wrapped herself in.

 

"Anne, I'm sorry, I just... I was just walking..." he stutters out in a loud whisper as she comes near him. "I didn't... I didn't mean to wake anyone, I didn't..." he drops his head to stare at the toes of his boots, unsure of what to say. He half expects her to slap him or something, though he isn't sure why. Surely she'll laugh at him, which is probably worse.

 

She says nothing, just walks closer to him until suddenly her toes are in his line of vision too. He forces himself to look up, look her in the face. Surprisingly she doesn't look angry at all, or like she's going to laugh. She just looks...well, questioning. ( _And pretty, eh Blythe?_ the Bash voice mocks)

 

"What is it, Gilbert?" she asks calmly. "Are you all right? Did...did you have a nightmare?"

 

He's shocked when she says that, when she reads him so easily. Although (and he feels a bit ashamed that he didn't think of it before) if there's one person in all of Avonlea who understands deep pain that comes for you even in your sleep, it's this girl in front of him, looking at him that way she does sometimes. Like she knows every part of him and doesn't judge him for any of it.

 

He nods once, then again. "I.. I miss my DAD" he blurts out. He winces to hear the tears in his voice, the desperation. What will she think of him? Anne thinks nothing at all, just feels a bone-rooted pity and understanding. She didn't before, but she does now. ( _She has a flash of Matthew's sick, white face and shivers.)_ Gilbert's eyes are shining in the moonlight from unshed tears, and she can't think of anything worse for him than to cry here, in front of her. She wouldn't mind at all, but she knows he would, and it would forever change things between them in a way neither of them are ready for. So she does the only thing she can think of, which is to reach out and take his hand.

 

His is warm and calloused. Hers is cold, soft and small. They don't speak. She keeps his hand in hers and leads him to the barn, where she sits on the big pile of hay just inside the door, and tugs him down beside her.

 

A few minutes tick by before Anne begins to talk. "At the asylum...well, I had quite bad dreams there, as I'm sure you can imagine. I would wake up and be afraid. I was afraid of the dark but...just the _inside_ dark. Do you know what I mean? I use to think I... I wouldn't be afraid of the _outside_ dark. It's so much more friendly somehow, don't you think?" He nods, still clutching her small fingers. He knows exactly what she means.

 

"And I used to think, if I could just go out into the outside dark and sort of, sort of make friends with it, I wouldn't be half so afraid. I used to lie in my bunk there and pretend I was walking under the full moon, and the bats were swooping overhead (but not in a frightening manner, Gilbert, you understand), and then I'd walk on and on and finally fall asleep in the forest, all curled up on a patch of moss. Like a wood nymph. So you see, I understand perfectly how you feel."

 

She lies back on the hay and so does he, reluctant to let go of her hand. He tries to swallow the lump in his throat, which is now part missing his father and part a strange joy at being so completely understood. "Did, um..." he croaks out. He clears his throat and tries again. "Did you ever do it? Leave and walk around?"

 

"Oh, no" she says absentmindedly. "We weren't allowed. We only got to go out for an hour every day by turn, depending on our ages. So I'd have been punished. But oh it was such lovely imagining!" Gilbert's chest knots for a second again with the cruelty of it, keeping this girl cooped up in a mean place where people hated her. This girl, who loves forests and butterflies and running streams, kept inside to fade away. He wants to say something, but nothing comes to mind except for sorrow, and she wouldn't like anyone feeling sorry for her, so he squeezes her fingers lightly instead. Her hand goes still with shock and he's mentally kicking himself for doing it when he feels the small, hesitant clutch of her hand in response.

 

After that they don't say anything at all for a long while, they just lie on the pile of sweet smelling hay, watching the moon through the open barn door. They inch nearer and nearer together, her head an inch or two from his shoulder. He wishes she would rest it there, but he knows that's too far. He wishes lots of things, but mostly that he could say what he's thinking, which is that he wants to stay out here all night with her. And all morning too. And maybe the night after that. And so on, forever. He also wishes he could tell Anne that he likes her so much because of the way she talks (on and on, so passionate, so sure, so interested in everything), but he'd never have guessed he could like her silence just as much.

 

The sky is beginning to purple around the edges when she sits up and says (and maybe it's just wishful thinking but he swears he hears reluctance in her voice) "Shall I walk you home? You could maybe sleep a bit now."

 

Gilbert wants more than anything to say yes. He lets himself imagine he could for a minute, that they could just stand up now and walk, holding hands, to his house. He even wishes ( _and a blush comes to his cheeks as he does_ ) that when they reached his house, he didn't have to let go of her hand. He wishes he could open the door with the fingers not clasped in hers, that they could go inside and toe off their boots, then walk upstairs, still holding tight. He wishes that he could pull back his quilt and they could both climb in his bed. He wishes he could pull the blankets over them both and they could just fall asleep in their clothes, the way he used to as a little boy who needed naps. Sometimes, when he was small, his father would pull him onto his lap in the rocking chair and they'd creak back and forth until Gilbert was asleep. 

 

Gilbert realizes that that's what he wants...he doesn't want Anne in his bed for anything dirty or wrong ( _come off it, boy, parts of you do,_ the Bash voice laughs) but just to be close and safe. Her nose is red with the chill now and he thinks about how warm and cozy they could be, snuggled in his bed, cold nose against cold nose. His palm aches for a minute, thinking of how it would feel to just put that one hand on her slender waist, and sleep. Like two bear cubs (he twitches a smile at the thought) tumbled together in their winter cave, without a thought to the outside world.

 

He knows he can't, of course. Even if she agreed (and she certainly would not), he could never do anything that would shame Anne. And the whole of it would shame her, even just walking to his house with her hand in his at this time of morning. Night. Whatever it is. The things people would say, would think, if they were seen make him angry, especially since he knows it's Anne they'd hold responsible. He can't have that. And anyway, he doesn't want her walking home again by herself. He knows nothing would happen to her, but after the grifters last year...well, he'd rather not chance it, is all. ( _Again he does not question these things, they simply ARE. Being close to Anne is good. Keeping Anne safe is good. He will do these things as much as he is able.)_

 

"No," he tells her. "I'll be all right. Marilla and Matthew will be up soon and who knows what they'd think if you weren't in your bed!"

 

"Perhaps that some highwayman has come to steal me away!" she says dramatically. "Like in the poem." They both laugh. Anne and her dramatic readings. He hopes she does them forever.

 

"All right," he says. They stand up from the hay, brushing pieces of it from themselves. It's not easy to do one handed, but they don't want to let go just yet. Together they creep quietly toward Green Gables, keeping just out of sight of where, Anne says, Marilla's bedroom window is.

 

"And...and, that's mine," she says, and her face matches her hair as she points to one. "That's my room. If...if you ever, um, if..."

 

"Okay," he says, cutting her off, trying to save her any further embarrassment. "Thank you, Anne." He knows he will never use this information, will never actually stand there in the shadows tossing pebbles until she wakes. But he _could_. He could, and she would come down, and that means the whole world and then some. "I'm... I'm glad you woke up," he tells her, looking into her flushed, freckled face.

 

He likes Anne Shirley-Cuthbert more than he likes anyone in the world, he realizes. He wonders what she would say to that, if he just up and told her that she was his favorite person alive. He can't tell her, not now, but he wants to _show_ her. He begins to pull a bit on the small hand still in his, just tugging her a tiny bit closer to him.

 

"Um, Gil..." she stammers out, but she lets herself be pulled. She maybe, even, nudges a little closer to him when he isn't pulling.

 

"I'm glad you woke up," he whispers again. "Although I'm sorry you'll be tired today...well. Anyway."

 

"Anyway," she breathes back, and suddenly they're both back in that tea shop before he sailed away from her. He remembers staring into her eyes then and having the oddest urge to lean across the table and take her hand and tell her to come with him. She wouldn't have, of course, and the ship would have been no place for her, but he wanted to ask all the same. Just as he wants to kiss her now. She's far closer than she was that day.

 

His heart is leaping in his chest. He's going to kiss her, he's going to kiss Anne. Her breath is coming fast and she looks a bit nervous, but not afraid. He's going to _kiss_ Anne Shirley and she's going to _let him_. (That's the jubilant part, for him. She's going to let him because she wants to kiss him too.) He tugs her the tiniest bit closer yet and she comes willingly. He's not been this close to a girl ever (well, that breech birth doesn't count of course) and he's surprised that there's not much thinking involved, that you just know what to do.

 

His free arm comes up behind her, gently, not holding, just resting his palm on the scratchy wool of Matthew Cuthbert's coat. So lightly, she can get away if she wants to. He'd never hold her to him. If he has anything to do with it, no one will ever cage Anne in again.

 

 _His eyes are so close_ , Anne thinks. _They're, why, they're GREEN._ They aren't really, they're hazel for all everyone thinks they're brown. But up close, and looking like this, they're positively green. ( _She won't remember a lot about the details of this moment in later years, until their first son's eyes finish changing and take on this exact color, and she'll stare at him and say "why, your eyes are green," and though it is summer in that distant future, she will suddenly feel a crisp autumn chill. She will remember hay in her hair and her hand in his_.)

 

 _Her mouth is so close_ , Gilbert thinks. _I could kiss her. I'm going to kiss her._ A strand of hair blows across her lips and he reaches out to nudge it away with his thumb. A small shiver goes through them both as he touches her mouth and the strand winds itself around his finger. It's so many colors at once, he sees, not just plain red. There's deep russet and flame orange and scarlet mixed in, altogether, and it's so beautiful. ( _In an even longer off future than the one with the green eyed toddler, Gilbert will be sitting in the same rocking chair he remembered earlier, with one twin daughter on each knee, falling asleep the way he did so long ago. The sun shining through the window hits their curls just right, both the dark haired little head and the one with her mother's hair, turning it to flame. He'll put one hand on each little warm head and feel a twinge of sadness that his father never got to see the rocker used this way, but mostly he just feels deep down happiness, a sense that everything has turned out the way it was always meant to._ )

 

But all of that is many years and joys and sorrows in the future, and right now they are just children ( _barely, but children still)_ , standing in the shadow of Green Gables, hands clasped, faces tilting and leaning toward one another. Their lips have almost touched when Anne pulls back with a gasp.

 

"I... Marilla!" Gilbert jerks away, half expecting to see the iron haired, iron willed woman herself, but Anne is merely pointing to the upstairs window, where a candle has just flared into view.

 

"I... I should go," he says, and for the first time in hours, he drops Anne's hand from his own.

 

"Oh, yes, I, I'll just sneak in downstairs and tell Marilla I thought the fox was in the chicken coop so I went to check," she says..

 _Foxes and chicken coops and candles, after a night of the moon and hand holding and kindred spirits_ , Gilbert thinks. _Well, the dream like quality of the night is over for good_.

 

"I'll, I'll see you Monday, at school," she says. "And, I hope you, you, um, get some rest. You'd better hurry." And then like a flash she's up on her tiptoes, and before he can register a bit of it her lips are on his cheek, and then she gasps out "sleep well" and flees into the house.

 

He's struck dumb for a minute. Her mouth was like a hummingbird. He presses his fingers to his face and then hears Marilla calling down "Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, is that you? What on earth are you doing?" That gets him moving if nothing else will. He's high tailing it across the field before he can think to do otherwise, though he stops at the edge to look back.

 

And there's Anne, in her window, holding a candle, watching him go. He lifts one hand hesitantly and she lifts hers in response. He knows they won't talk about this on Monday. They won't talk about this for years, maybe. But someday, he knows, someday.

 

And with that, Gilbert Blythe turns and walks home under the fading stars.


	2. Exactly Twenty Years Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an idea Expolsion left me in the comments on the last chapter. Thank you, and I hope this is somewhat what you envisioned!

The stars are still out, but barely, as Gilbert Blythe half walks, half stumbles through his front door. If he isn't quiet, he'll be sure to wake Susan, and her tutting will begin the second she sees the exhaustion scrawled over his face, the hollows under his hazel eyes sunken and purple as bruises. It has been a long, hard night after two very busy and sleepless days, and he's almost asleep on his feet.

 

It was a breech, like his first birth all those years ago in Trinidad, but twins this time. Boys. Too early, but fighters for all of that, and they may make it yet. He prays they will, and after a few hours of sleep he plans to go back and check on them, make sure they're settled in all right in the hospital in Lowbridge. It was touch and go for awhile, but he thinks the mother will make it too. After all she is a Reese, and to a one the Reeses are as stubborn as mules fighting over the best briar patch, as Susan is wont to say. He's glad of it today. He hasn't lost as many patients in his career as a lesser doctor might have, but each one has hurt all the same.

 

He knows when he rests he'll be jubilant over the outcome of the birth, but for now he is just _tired_ , so very very tired. His bones feel like they're made of glass and his vision blurs for a second as he pulls off his coat and unwinds his scarf, as he strips down to his long woolen underwear, dropping his cold outer clothes in a heap beside the door. His arms and back ache (it's always a shock to new doctors how physical the act of healing can be, how strong a person must be to pull broken bones into place, to turn recalcitrant newborns until they can be pushed into a world they're not so sure they'd like to join.) It's freezing out, too, even just the walk from the barn to the house has turned his face numb. He can smell snow in the air, though none has fallen yet. He hopes it holds off for a bit. Much of the time he feels a good decade younger than he is. But tonight Gilbert feels old and sore, his energy drained to nothing, and the most faithful constant of his life holds as true now as ever...he wants his wife.

 

He's tired, and he wants Anne.

 

He pads up the stairs in his thick woolen winter socks, one hand trailing along the bannister. It feels so far when he's this tired, when he feels like he could drop where he stands and sleep for a week. But still he takes the extra few minutes to look in on the children, as he always promises he will.

 

The first room is the boys'. Gilbert peeks in, listening to the three breathing, slow and deep and almost synchronized. At nearly nine, Jem is so long suddenly, limbs flung out like a starfish. And Walter, his handsome little face serious even at rest. The littlest of all their boys, Shirley Sebastian, is curled up in a ball and burrowed under his quilt so that only a tuft of brown hair and one tan, pudgy little hand are visible. "Goodnight, boys", he whispers, leaving the door open a crack.

 

Down the hall a few more steps and to the right, he pushes another door open silently and peers in at his daughters. The twins share a big spool bed, tucked in under pink and green quilts pieced by "Auntie Marilla" when they were babies. Though one has red curls and one dark, they fall over their little foreheads in the same pattern, and from the doorway Gilbert can see identical expressions of delighted curiosity on their small, sleeping faces. They often tell him they dream the same thing, and from the looks of it they're on some grand adventure. Little roly poly Rilla shifts in her cot as her father looks in at her, and Gilbert holds his breath until she's motionless again. She's only been sleeping in with "the big girls" for a few months now, and occasionally still wakes at night, fussing for mama. But she's quiet now, her little head still and one chubby thumb finding her mouth. Their smallest of all, their last baby.

 

When Shirley was born and Anne nearly died, he'd said no more, that he'd not risk it. Not risk _her_. But she'd told him no, that there was one more guest not arrived to the party yet, and she'd been right. She so often is.

 

"Goodnight, baby," Gilbert says in the barest whisper. "Goodnight, my girls." And then at last, on down the hall to the end bedroom, where Anne sleeps in the warm dark, waiting for him.

 

He pulls back the layers of bedclothes and crawls beneath them, snuggling up behind his wife and pulling her close. He puts his cold nose in his favorite spot, right where her long white neck meets her shoulder, and he is instantly at peace.

 

She breathes in deeply, drowsily. "Gil?" she murmurs. "What time is it?" Her voice is thick with sleep. "Late," he whispers into her shoulder. "Shhh, go back to sleep."

 

As he spoons up behind her, he marvels for more than the thousandth time at how slight she is. Not only after all the children, but because she is the largest, brightest thing he knows in so many other ways.

 

Anne feels his scruff on her skin, the chill from his body beginning to seep through her nightgown and wake her a bit more. "You're all cold," she tells him, then sees the lightening day through a crack in the bedroom curtains. "And just getting home? Oh, love, you must be exhausted." Instead of retreating from his cold body she burrows further back into him, wanting to warm him up.

 

"Yes," he yawns. "But I'm home now, and you're so warm." He clutches her more tightly to him as something flits across his memory. "Anne?" he asks.

 

"Mmm?" she says back, so quiet and sleepy he barely hears it.

 

"Do you remember that night I came to Green Gables? When I was, what, sixteen or seventeen I suppose. I'd had a nightmare, remember?"

 

He can hear the smile in her voice when she replies. "I do. I thought later that you must have thought me an awful wanton, to go out and meet you that way, in the dark in just my nightclothes.Whatever would Marilla have thought if she'd known?!"

 

"Well," he tells her, a chuckle rumbling in his chest, "honestly I was hoping you WOULD feel wanton but I settled for just holding your hand all night."

 

"Why Gilbert BLYTHE, you cad!" she gasps in mock outrage, and her laugh is as carefree as it was back then, when she was just a girl.

 

He hugs her against him, feeling her ribs under his forearms and burying his face in her hair. "It may surprise you, given the illicit things that I was already starting to think about you then, but what I really wanted was, well... I wanted THIS." He says it in the way of one making a confession, and it's true that even after two decades he's never spoken of that night.

 

"I was so lonely and cold and I just wanted to be...with you." Anne lies still, listening to him murmur into her hair. "I wanted to take you home with me and keep you warm and safe with me in my bed. I thought maybe with you beside me, I could sleep and not dream at all. I knew I couldn't, though, because we were so young and I knew people would say things about you. Bad things. But I just wanted to be close to you."

 

"Oh, Gil," she breathes out. "You looked...you looked so sad, standing there. I remember I held your hand. I thought about that for weeks, how I'd actually held your hand. I thought it was the living _end_ of romantical!"

 

"That's not all you did, Miss Shirley-Cuthbert," he growls into her neck. "You kissed me, you know. Bold as brass, and Marilla awake inside, and me just a poor innocent lad having his first kiss foisted upon him..." he's laughing too hard to continue now.

 

"Gil _bert_!" she huffs, then rolls smoothly in his arms to face him. They're nose to nose now, and Gilbert has forgotten about being tired and cold. "I did, didn't I? I kissed you right out there in the garden."

 

"Mmhmm," he says, one long doctor's finger tapping a spot just above his jawbone. "Right here you did." Her eyes are all the way open now, laughing into his.

 

"Well my my, maybe you married a wanton woman after all," she teases, then kisses him with a loud smack on the long ago site of that first time, then lands another square on his lips. Even after many years and many kisses, it feels the same. She feels the same. Warm and right and _home_ , yet somehow new and exciting for all of that. He rubs his nose up and down hers for a second, smiling.

 

"No," he murmurs, "you were the very essence of propriety. The wanton behavior came later, if I recall."

 

Their first proper kiss had been a shock to them both, really, and afterward they could never quite decide who leaned first, just that they had been talking and suddenly their lips had met. They'd been shy and eager and it had been wonderful, learning each other's mouths, learning how to make each other tremble and gasp. He can remember the first time their kisses strayed from lips on lips. He remembers her mouth along his jaw, his neck, making him groan and fist his hands at his sides because he was afraid to frighten her, afraid that if he let himself, he'd touch in her in some way she wouldn't like, or that he'd hold her too tightly because dear _God_ he wanted to, wanted to touch her everywhere.

 

Looking back, he's not sure how they waited til the wedding night, but wait they did. It had all been so good, even though they were nervous. They'd stopped being nervous over the following nights, but it had never stopped being good. His intimate life with Anne has been one of the greatest delights of his adulthood. He knew it would be wonderful but even yet he's still surprised at _how_ wonderful it is, how much they can make each other feel.

 

He feels a stir of arousal but there's no time for that now, they're both so tired. He's yawning as he rolls onto his back and she rests her head on his chest. _Tomorrow_ , he thinks. In the afternoon, as Shirley and Rilla nap and dream their baby dreams, and the older children bundle up to play outside in the crisp leaf piles before the snow comes, and Susan bakes the pies to go with the Sunday lunch.

 

_Yes, in that magic afternoon hour he'll make like he has some important correspondence to get to, but really he'll pull her in here, into their room, as he has so many times before. "Gilbert, why...Gilbert, it's the middle of the-" she'll protest, like she does every time....at first. And he'll entwine his fingers with hers and kiss the words she was going to say right out of her mouth._

 

Many years ago, when they were in the first shy weeks of their courtship, his need for her had overwhelmed his sense of propriety during a party at the Barry home. He'd caught her hand and pulled her into a nook just outside the parlor, and he'd kissed her and kissed her til she was panting and every part of him felt hard, and ached for every part of her. They'd had to stop, then, but tomorrow they won't. Tomorrow he'll kiss her like that again, in this room, and just like then he'll marvel at the way she quivers when he strokes his tongue slowly over hers. After a minute she won't utter any more words of protest. She'll be the one to untie her apron and toss it aside, and he'll tease her, ask her what kind of behavior is this for a respectable mother and wife, hmm, as her fingers impatiently begin working the buttons on his shirt.

 

He's almost asleep now, but smiling as he thinks of it. If he began inching up her night dress now, she'd not stop him. But no, this ever-present desire to wordlessly tell Anne how very much he loves her will keep.

 

 _Tomorrow_ , he thinks, with the sounds of the children playing outside and the smell of pie in the oven. _Tomorrow_.

 

For now, it is enough to do what he wanted all those years ago. It is enough to pull Anne more tightly into his arms as she burrows her nose into the thick wool of his undershirt. She's already dozed off again, lulled by his heart pumping steadily beneath her ear, by his hand running up and down her arm. He bends his neck a bit til his face is nestled in all that beautiful, bright hair that he loves so much (she swears she finds gray strands but he's yet to see them). It carries the scent of mint and rosemary and Anne, and it smells so good and she feels so warm and he's so tired. He has time to spare one last thought for the boy he was so long ago, walking home alone and thinking of her, thinking of being with her exactly like this.

 

It feels better than he had ever hoped it could.

 

And with that one certainty trailing after him into dreamless, peaceful rest, Gilbert Blythe falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't intend to write a second chapter, but once it was mentioned in the comments I couldn't let go of the idea! Sometimes when I write it just pours out so quickly that I don't really guide the story at all, it just...happens. This chapter was like that :) It didn't go at all the way I first outlined in my brain, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! I really just adore this couple.


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